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Open Source: Who Are Those Guys?
dfay writes "An interesting article on ZDNet about who makes up the Open Source Movement. Of course, you have to accept the premise that all OSS programmers are tracked in the LSM. Still, I think the overall tone of the piece suggests that OSS developers can be taken at least as seriously as those in the 'industry'." Actually, the article mentions that lots of developers' work, including kernel hacks, don't show up in Linux Software Maps [LSMs]. Still good stuff.
It seems that there are three conditions needed to get Geeks to write stuff.
Compare this to commercial software:
I don't think that makes commercial software evil - it is just based on very different conditions. Both can exist. It shouldn't surprise anyone that impassioned people can create a better product. But that said, I think people might be surprised at how much passion there IS in commercial software. Most developers I know care quite a bit about their projects. A good developer can work anywhere they want; they have chosen the jobs they have.
Let's see... ZDNet wrote a wonderful article once again.. unhindered by the facts though they may be....
My list of OSS developers:
ESR - Wrote some articles. Carries a gun. Has a short temper. Wants somebody to take his job. Probability of going postal (or cobol) within the next 6 months: 75% Could use a beer.
RMS - Wrote alot of code. Has long hair. Doesn't carry a gun. Gets into frequent fights with ESR anyway. Wishes people would stop calling open source "free". Wants free speech, but not free beer.
RM - Made some nerds for news site. Drinks lots of free beer.
WTF - Mythical god of programming. Usually invoked whenever something doesn't work, ie: "WTF, why did you do that?" Drink some beer and he'll go away.
Linus: Coded the greatest operating system known in 6 days. On the 7th day he rested. We've been releasing new kernels ever since. Claims teenage girls don't throw their underwear at him but we know better. Currently unemployed - "This company is not yet here." He's one reason alot of programmers started drinking. =)
Alan Cox - Linus' right hand man. Whatever linus breaks, he fixes. Often has a new kernel ready to before you've even finished downloading the present release posted to kernel-dev ten minutes ago. Has long hair. Beer status unknown.
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Far from being contrary to the ``way UNIX operates'', a lot of the things you describe are actually not all that far off.
/etc, and these things can't be moved around without telling the program. (But could you move your Mac application preference settings anywhere?) Now in Windows, on the other hand, there are interfaces to explicitly support the idea of making a program sensitive to its own place in the filesystem. Moreover, there is the concept of putting a program's DLL's in the same directory as the program, so if you don't move all of the components together, it breaks. The registry often contains path names of executables and objects. Sometimes applicatiosn register their own components, and then cannot be moved without reinstallation which will reregister the components.
/etc/conf.modules.
In UNIX-like environments, you can move programs around and they still work. Programs tend not to be sensitive to their own location. There isn't even a standard API function in POSIX or the UNIX specification for a program to find the location of its own excecutable. In fact, such a function would have to lie, because the executable can be unlinked or renamed while the program is running. What usually matters is that your program's preferences are in some dot-rc file in your home directory or in
About the drivers: installing drivers in Linux is not quite as easy as dragging something to a folder, but it's almost there. Drivers are just files that are typically kept in some special directory structure. If you wanted to, you could set up your system so that you put all your desired drivers into some driver directory, and some script running in the background just loads (via insmod) whatever is in there, and periodically checks for stuff to be removed so that it can do the rmmod---without ever rebooting. A little design would have to go into storing the driver-specific configuration. So you are basically talking about a feature that can be hacked up in half a screenful of a bash script. I wouldn't want to do this because it would be inferior to setting up aliases in
It boils down to the remainder of your points which are still true as ever: namely the lack of UI integration for ``dumb'' users. But I suspect it's partly due to the fact that once the difficult systems programming work has been done to the point that someone can hack up some easy script to accomplish something, there is little incentive to sweat out a graphical interface that will in the end be less flexible and therefore less satisfying. That doesn't mean that there is some deep ``UNIX principle'' if you will which rules out the possibility of making graphical interfaces for system configuration and other things.
Microsoft has "partnered" with Transvirtual and funded Microsoft technologies to be added to Kaffe. I consider this a strong action on Microsoft's part that they consider Kaffe a very important Open Source project. Come on now, any time Microsoft don't try to destroy competition, there must be something special about it.
-Brent--
Yes, you've got to watch out. hehe
Mozilla -- hey, I have great hopes for Mozilla and it should eventually meet my expectations. But today? Clearly better than IE? No way.Clearly, Mozilla is still a work in progress. You actually clipped off my comment, I mentioned that when I listed it. I wasn't so much as saying it was better now, but that it was slated to be easily better when it was complete.
But there's nothing wrong with pointing out a projects goals, even if it hasn't got there yet. Mozilla is pretty close and we know what progress has been like, and where it is going to end up. Everyone does this :) Microsoft has been claiming for 5 years all the good things that W2K was going to do.
KDE/GNOME -- I find KDE's progress astounding and I can't wait for 2.0 and KOffice. But is it clearly superior to MacOS, today? No way.I mentioned this already. "Better" is hard to define. Certainly, everyone has a different opinion on what their favorite WM is, but that doesn't change the fact that both KDE and Gnome are amazingly outstanding applications, and they will only get better.
I don't think anything could be better then OS/2's Presentation Manager myself.
Gimp -- clearly superior to Photoshop? Maybe for making Propaganda tiles, but not even close for publishing work.There are graphical applications to do many different things. Let's not compare apples to oranges here. Even Photoshop isn't meant for certain graphical work. But the Gimp has a strong niche too. Maybe not in everything, but that certain doesn't discount its quality.
As I refered to earlier, Adobes response to questions about a Linux port of Photoshop is, "Have you tried out the Gimp?" They certainly think it has merit.
-Brent--
What was first, an open source web server, or a closed source? How about an open source web browser, or a closed source? How about DNS servers? Smtp servers? Was the first OS open source, or closed source? How ebout the TCP/IP stack?
Sorry, check out the history. Lots of applications started out as open source implementations.
-Brent--
So what? A study that only includes Linux programmers is excessively skewed toward kernel hacing. If you're interested in the demographics of open source programmers, and this is what they're doing, then that's what you should be investigating. You do know that kernel hacking is not the whole universe of open source, don't you?
Nobody ever wrote a filesystem or device driver in perl, nobody ever will, and there are many more programming categories where it's almost equally unusable. The findings would be overly weighted toward text munging and web crap.
Uh, while it's true that no one would use Perl for kernel hacking, file systems or device drivers, I think you have a very narrow and uninformed view of the things people do use it for. Have a look at the list of module categories, you'll see many different kinds of applications, including system-level stuff (in fact, there are modules that access the filesystem and an interface to Windows serial device drivers there). Note that Perl modules don't have to be written in Perl; they can be written in the C API, which is often done to create a Perl interface to the operating system level.
I think your conclusion has it completely backwards. Perl may be the project that covers the widest variety of programming categories, because it's used for so many different purposes.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Working in this industry, you usually have long hours. Then with the passion of the geek, we work on Open Source when we get home. I personally love the code, but trying to raise two kids, and working full time as well as going to school for my MS in CS it gets hard. I tried to work with Xfree86, I'm still on the development list. But I have yet to submit anything. I was able to work with GTK a while ago, but that slipped too. Now my only saving grace is with college, I can work on a Open Source database for my thesis.
I'm not alone, the hardest thing for Open Source people is time to do it. The learning curve, then the work. And if you get pulled away from it for a while then it's hard to catch back up. When things get slower I want to start my own little project, but that is for later.
Also, looking at the Talk Backs, a lot of reference is made by clueless people that Open Source is done to take down Microsoft. This is sooooo untrue. I don't even think about Microsoft when I work with Linux. Of course RedHat and Caldera have to, to help get MS newbies over to Linux, but those that are writing code, do it for the pleasure of it. How could you accomplish anything if you only work to undermine something else. Negative energy is not easily turned into positive energy. But coding for the love of it will never die. Linus wrote Linux because he wanted an OS that he could live with. Not to undermind MS, but to not have to be stuck with it.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
It has been my experience time and again that Open Source software is almost always of higher quality than anything that comes out of the "Professional" industry.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
OK, yeah, the article was cheesy and shallow. Complain all you want about the "not hippies like you expected" jist.
But the question - "Who are the people behind this social movement, and what are they like?" - is a great question to ask. The fact that it may be impossible to answer conclusively doesn't detract from the potential value of the pursuiting an answer.
History will want to know "What happened here to cause this? Who were the men and women who joined in and supported this cause? What were their motivations? How did it fit into their lifes and their livelihoods? What made them different than all the people who did not take up the cause?"
There are some trivial answers to some of these questions, but there are also richer answers. It's all well and good to say "people contribute to OS because they want to give back", but that, for instance, misses the obvious predicate "and they aren't satisfied with the available cost-ware and its affordances." Our explanations to ourselves often overlook such fundamentals, because we are like fish discussing water.
I fervently hope that more anthropologists, social commentators, and just plain clueful reporters pay close attention to what's happening in the OS movement. This is what "journalism" means : to "journal" - to chronicle - history as it is being made.
This is it. This is history. Come'n get it.
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-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
...Bar your windows, the Evil Open Source Longhaired Communist Anti-Business Hippies are on the way!!
From the Propaganda Department of the United States of America, subdivision Microsoft, Inc.
Protect your children! These developers will stop at nothing to bring the flourishing networked economy to a grinding halt in the name of satanic flightless birds, and some crazy guy named after one of the Peanuts characters!!! (Linus)
Oh, and you just KNOW they're all *COMMIES*. How on earth could anybody give anything away for free, without being some kind of hippe beatnik pot smoking red commie pinko of a subversive! They're not AMERICANS like you or I - their hearts pump no blood like ours, but rather, a thick, vomitous black fluid that oozes and stinks of their evil intentions.
Resist this creeping evil! Do not be fooled by Open Source Programmers who mindlessly chatter about how they offer more stable and secure software than Microsoft. The very concept is absurd! Now shut up and listen to Mr. Paperclip.
(Warning: The above was a joke - if you didn't gather that, please look up the term LART and apply it to thyself)
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I'll be honest, I don't think this article is worthy of criticism as it is of praise. It's nice to see the recognition of folks, even as statistics, outside of the common names we all know.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
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Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
our goal was to study one long running, since 1993, open source community. i think that too much data-mingling would be a bad idea.
Fine, nothing wrong with that, the study just needs to be presented for what it is. I really don't know if you've done anything objectionable, because I haven't seen what you've written. My objection is to the headlines at ZDNet and Slashdot, which described it as a study of "open source"; that's overbroad.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I knew we only had one longhaired, barefooted female graduate student/hacker in our midst, but gosh! She did 12% of all Linux applications? This chick is hot!
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
we know and acknowledge that LSMs are only part of what's out there, but LSMs have tracked (and still do track) the most "open" contributions. that is the archive is not controlled, for better or worse, by Linus, a core team, or much of anyone. ;->).
i like to think of the archive and LSMs as the beginning of the Open Source pipe. next we want to look at what makes it from LSM to different distros, how certain "programmer heroes" contribute and where, etc. (this last might include alan cox as a contributor of graphics to the archive w/LSM
more suggestions for us to look into are welcome and encouraged
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
As far as I can see, they only counted the author or maintainer for each package, not the many contributers. The later would require digging through ChangeLog and CREDITS files, and perhaps even mailing list archives.
Iff someone did that, I think we would see many more shared developers between projects. Being the official maintainer can be stressful, I can understand why most people will only do that for one project. Contributing to someone elses project is less demanding, you can work when you want to, and ignore the project when your interest is elsewhere. It would also be interesting to examine how many one-man projects there, how many that are essentially developed by teams, and how many which are based on many one-patch contributions. Looking for cliques could also be interesting, are there cliques formed around Gnome and KDE where the same developers contribute to the same projects?
It would be a lot more work than examining LSM files, and t would probably be necessary to limit the number of projects examined. But there might be a nice bachelor project in studing the contributer dynamics.
Why don't someone find all the software they can, look for the CREDITS or AUTHORS file, parse it, store entries for each developer in a database somewhere, and then bring out the statistics!
Why hadn't someone thought of this before? You are not going to find out about the developers in "Linux" Software Maps... look in the tarballs.
* Linux is not very significant in the whole of things. What about the compiler, filesystem utilities, X Windows System, text editors, Desktop Enviroments, etc.? And what of the other kernals?
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!